Load-bearing vests are commonly worn as outer garments by police, emergency and military personnel who are required to carry a variety of items of equipment in an easily accessible location. Such items include water carriers, radios, batons, knives, handguns, ammunition, grenades and capsicum spray canisters. These items are usually carried in pouches attached to the vest.
Traditionally, the pouches are permanently fastened to the vests in fixed positions, eg. by being stitched into position. An example of a vest with stitched-on pouches for a variety of purposes is to be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,617,582. Because the pouches are stitched in position, a police or military unit may require access to more than one different vest, perhaps several, each designed for a different operation.
In order to reduce the need for this enlarged inventory, there have been a number of proposals for vest systems in which the pouches are detachable and interchangeable, and the pouch array thereby reconfigurable. An early approach is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,106,121: the front panels of the vest have multiple pouch locations defined by velcro strips and snap fastener posts by which each pouch may be detachably fitted to the vest.
In a quite different arrangement, International Patent Publication WO 01/93710 describes a load carrying system including a panel of mesh which overlays the garment or pack. An array of holes complementary to the openings in the mesh is provided on the pouches. A stud-like fastener is used to secure each pouch to the panel by passing a shank through a registered pair of holes in the panel and in the pouch and using a keeper to secure the shank in place. The shank has a series of barbs or grooves to engage the keeper. Due to the array of holes provided by the mesh forming the panel, the pouches can be located at any of a variety of positions and moreover may be positioned at an angle to the vertical.
In a similar system that has been disclosed, instead of a panel of mesh overlaying the garment, the stud-like fasteners are employed to attach the pouches to the mesh openings in the vest itself: load-bearing vests are commonly of open-weave mesh construction to improve ventilation and minimize the vest's contribution to greater body heat.
Another reconfigurable system, adopted by some United States military personnel, has a vest with an attached array of vertical and horizontal webbing to which pouches are hooked by clips of a kind conventionally employed to fasten items to waist-belts.
An issue with the above described reconfigurable systems is the lack of reliability of the fastener arrangements. Where attachment is to mesh, the openings in the mesh are not stable and the fasteners tend to pull out through the holes. The fasteners are intended to be disengageable by hand, and so have a tendency to be too easily released when other forces are applied. This is unsatisfactory, for example, because personnel may be required to crawl along the ground or manoeuvre in situations where they would be brushing past objects. The fasteners are also considered too bulky, as they project from the garment. The stud-like fasteners have a small head and therefore create a localized pressure point, which is uncomfortable for the wearer.
It Is therefore an object of the invention, at least in a particular application, to provide a personal load-bearing system with a more reliable and durable pouch attachment system which is reconfigurable and comfortable for the user.